Except on Asgard. Jupiter was too far and too small; Mars was scarcely visible; the Asteroid Belt not much thicker than the Milky Way. The unfamiliar magnitudes of the planets told Stuart, very surely, that he was on unknown territory. He was without the sure, safe anchor that spacemen depend upon, and that lack told him how utterly he stood alone now.
But the unreasoning confidence did not flag. If anything, it mounted stronger within him as he hurried along the road, his rangy legs eating up the miles with easy speed. The sooner he reached his goal, the better he’d like it. Nor did he wish to encounter any more of the Aesir’s guardians—his business was with the Aesir!
The tower of light grew taller as he went on. Now he saw that it was a cluster of buildings, massed cylinders of varying heights, each one gigantic in diameter as well as height, and all shining with that cold, shadowless radiance that apparently came from the stone—or metal—itself. The road led directly to the base of the tallest tower.
It ran between shining pillars—a gateless threshold—and was lost in silvery mists. No bars were needed to keep visitors out of this fortress!
Briefly a cool wind of doubt blew upon Stuart. He hesitated, wishing he had at least his blaster gun. But he was unarmed; he had even left the club back in the forest.
He glanced around.
The red moon was sinking. A heavier darkness was creeping over the land. Very far away he thought he saw the shifting flicker of dancing lights—a Watcher?
He hurried onward.
Cyclopean, the tower loomed above him, like a shining rod poised to strike. His gaze could not pierce the mists beyond the portal.
He stepped forward—between the twin pillars. He walked on blindly into the silver mists.
Twenty steps he took—and paused, as something dark and shapeless swam into view before him. A pit—at his feet.
In the dimness he could not see its bottom, but a narrow bridge crossed the gulf, a little to his left. Stuart crossed the bridge. Solidity was again under his feet.
With shocking suddenness, a great, brazen bellow of laughter roared out. Harsh mockery sharpened it. And it was echoed.
All around Stuart the laughter thundered—and was answered. The walls gave it back and echoed it. The bellowing laughter of gods deafened Stuart.
The mists drifted away—were sucked down into the pit. They vanished.
As though they fled from that evil laughter.
Stuart stood in a chamber that must have occupied the entire base of that enormous tower. Behind him the abyss gaped. Before him a shifting veil of light hid whatever lay behind it. But all around, between monstrous pillars, were set thrones, ebon thrones fifty feet tall.
On the thrones sat giants!
Titan figures, armored in glittering mail, ringed Stuart, and instantly his mind fled back to half-forgotten folklore. … Asgard, Jotunheim, the lands of the giants and the gods. Thor and Odin, sly Loki and Baldur—they were all here, he thought, bearded colossi roaring their black laughter into the shaking air of the hall.
Watching him from their height—
Then he looked up, and the giants were dwarfed.
The chamber was roofless. At least he could see no roof. The pillars climbed up and up tremendously all around the walls that were hung with vast stretches of tapestry, till they dwindled to a pinpoint far above. The sheer magnitude of the tower made Stuart’s mind rock dizzily.
Still the laughter roared out. But now it died. …
Thundered through the hall a voice … deep … resonant … the voice of the Aesir.
“A human, brother!”
“Aye! A human—and a mad one, to come here.”
“To enter the hall of the Aesir.”
A red-bearded colossus bent down, his glacial blue eyes staring at Stuart. “Shall I crush him?”
Stuart sprang back as an immense hand swooped down like a falling tree upon him. Instinctively his hand flashed to his belt, and suddenly the red-beard was shouting laughter that the others echoed.
“He has courage.”
“Let him live.”
“Aye. Let him live. He may amuse us for a while. …”
“And then?”
“Then the pit—with the others.”
The others? Stuart slanted a glance downward. The silver mists had dissipated now, and he could see that the abyss was not bottomless. Its floor was fifty feet below the surface on which he stood, and a dozen figures were visible beneath.
They stood motionless—like statues. A burly, leather-clad Earthmen who might have been whisked from some Plutonian mine; a slim, scantily clad Earthgirl, her hair powdered blue, her costume the shining sequin-suit of a tavern entertainer. A stocky, hunch-shouldered Venusian with his slate-gray skin; a Martian girl, seven feet tall, with limbs and features of curious delicacy, her hair piled high atop that narrow skull. Another Earthman—a thin, pale, clerklike fellow. A white-skinned, handsome Callistan native, looking like Apollo, and, like all Callistans, harboring the cold savagery of a demon behind that smooth mask.
A dozen of them—drawn from all parts of the System. Stuart remembered that this was the time of the periodic tithing—which meant nothing less than a sacrifice. Once each month a few men and women would vanish—not many—and the black ships of the Aesir priests sped back to Asgard with their captives.
Not one looked up. Frozen motionless as stone, they stood there in the pit—waiting.
Again the laughter crashed out. The red-beard was watching Stuart.
“His courage flags,” the great voice boomed. “Speak the truth, Earthman. Have you courage to face the gods?”
Stuart stubbornly refused to answer. He had an odd, reasonless impression that this was part of some deep game, that behind the mocking byplay lay a more serious purpose.
“He has courage now,” a giant said. “But did he always have courage? Has there never been a time in his life when courage failed him? Answer, Earthman!”
Stuart was listening to another voice, a quiet, infinitely distant voice within his brain that whispered: Do not answer them!
“Let him pass our testing,” the red-beard commanded. “If he fails, there is an end. If he does not fail—he goes into the pit to walk the Long Orbit.”
The giant leaned forward.
“Will you match skill—and
